Hello Adrian,
You wrote: [...]
>As you and others are well aware, one does not need to try to fit
>the biblical label of "kinds" into any sort of scientific category,
>although people have tried to do so. However, one chooses to define
>the biblical "kinds", we all recognize that there is just a whole
>range of opinions that nevertheless can fit within an OEC framework.
>Some of them are clearly incompatible with scientific data, but
>conceivably, there could be certain definitions that would be
>entirely consistent with the data. And that is my main argument,
>that certain versions of OEC may be as consistent with the data as
>evolution is.

I'll extend that: Versions of OEC can even be _more_ consistent with
the data. That is because there is no easy way of knowing what a
deity _cannot_ do.

>Furthermore, I do not think that an OEC position necessarily requires
>that one draws clear boundaries between ALL kinds of organisms, but
>only that humans are specially created. This is necessary to preserve
>the doctrine of Original Sin and the dignity and inestimable worth of
>humans as made in the image of God. Thus, the doctrine of creation is
>not that God created all living things in exactly the same form as we
>see today (although it could embrace that if the data supports it),
>but that God created all things (it is not about species, but about
>all things) visible and invisible, and that humans are not created
>"after their own kind" but in the "image and likeness" of God.

Perhaps true, but as an explanation of the patterns observed in the
physical world, the concept lacks almost all the detail necessary
to provide any degree of distinguishability. I recognize that super-
natural intervention is always a possible explanation (for anything).
The problem is knowing when and how to apply it as a _likely_
explanation.